deadwoods

Level: Intermediate Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. This tutorial walks through my approach to creating custom lot icons that show up in the game menus. The tutorial assumes the following knowledge: A basic understanding of graphics formats, such as PNG Familiarity with Adobe Photoshop (a recent version, such as 8.0CS) Familiarity with loading icons using one of; DarkMatter's EasyGen, iLive's Reader, or iLives LEProp If using the Reader, you will need to understand TGI's and IID's. This tutorial walks through how I've been creating custom icons. There are some slicker mechanisms created by Andreas_Roth and GasCooker, but I'll leave it to them to upload these. Attached to this tutorial is the Photoshop template I use. Background This tutorial arose out of my frustration with the existing custom icon creation mechanisms. Currently there is: The icon files generated by LE. Yep, say no more. The sample template supplied in the "Help with Icons" download by Metabomb. It creates close to what the game supplies, but the corners are angled rather than rounded. DarkMatters EasyTweaker - but this doesn't create icons using the full 44x44 image you supply, it takes roughly the top/left 75% of the image (he was working on fixing this at the time of writing). iLives LEProp - but it doesn't create the four icon "strip", just loads what you give it. Now I like to create stuff for the game that is in sympathy with how the game does it. With menu icons this means rounded corners, transparency and the right thickness borders (yes I know it's pretty anal). So I started to play with a new copy of Photoshop and then Adobe ImageReady. Why ImageReady? It has a Rounded Rectangular Marquee tool that I thought the vanilla Photoshop didn't. I later found a way to do rounded corners with the Photoshop Marquee tool. So the rest of this tutorial uses Photoshop. Before we Start Before we start you will need the following: Adobe Photoshop (preferably a recent version, this tutorial may not work on older versions) An image you will use for your icon (the icon portion will be 44x44 pixels) The icon strip template (see icon_base.zip). Be aware that the "highlighted" icon (the one on the right of the four) has a 3px solid white border that curves around the icon. So you need to be careful of anything within 4 pixels of the edge and 7-8 pixels in from the corner. Don't expect something on the edge of your 44x44 pixel image to show up properly. FYI, the icon strip template was built in ImageReady (you could do it in Photoshop). It has the four 44x44 icons as per the standard game ones; The "locked reward" greyscale icon. It has a 1px rounded border, black with 40% opacity, created with a Style of "1pt Black Stroke No Fill". The "normal" icon. It has a 1px rounded border, black with 40% opacity, created with a Style of "1pt Black Stroke No Fill". The "currently selected" (last one used) icon. It has a 1px rounded border, black with 80% opacity, created with a Style of "1pt Black Stroke No Fill", and a 3px rounded border, white with 40% opacity, created with a Style of "3pt White Stroke No Fill". The "highlighted" (mouse currently over) icon. It has a 3px rounded border, white with 100% opacity, created with a Style of "3pt White Stroke No Fill". This is about as close as I could get it to the ingame ones. Steps to Create the Icon To create a custom icon in Photoshop using the template: Open the icon_base.psd file and expand the view to 400% (Ctrl+=). This will make it easier to work with later on. Open the image you want to use for your icon. I find it easier to first crop it to 46x46 pixels but you don't need to. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and set it to Fixed size of 44 x 44. Select the area you want for your icon with the tool. Choose Select -> Modify -> Smooth and set the Sample Radius to 5 pixels. Your selection should have rounded corners like in the following picture. Copy the selection (Ctrl+C) and paste it (Ctrl+V) onto the icon_base.psd file. Move the new layer (what you've just pasted) to the very left, so that the image is touching the left border (it should line up with the left most grey border). Next we convert this layer to greyscale. There are a few ways to do this. The way I've done is to select Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation and set Saturation to -100 and Hue to +30 (makes it a bit lighter). Close the dialog. Paste the image again (Ctrl+V) and move it left to line up with the second border (it should touch the greyscale one you were just working on). Paste the image again (Ctrl+V) and move it to the right to line up with the third border. Paste the image again (Ctrl+V) and move it to the right to line up with the fourth border. It should be hard against the right of the base image, i.e. you should now have for copies of the image (one greyscale) touching each other with no gaps. It's highly likely that the new images are on top of the borders. To fix this you will need to go to the Layers box/tab and move the new layers down so that the borders show. You might want to save this file as a Photoshop File (.psd) but it's not necessary. Do a "Save As" to save it to a .PNG file. You must save is as not Interlaced (i.e. on PNG Options dialog, select None). You should now have an "icon strip" (a 176x44 image) ready for loading into your custom lot. Importing the Icon into your Custom Lot There are a number of tools you can use to do this, such as DarkMatter's EasyTweaker (in DatGen), iLive's Reader and iLive's LEProp. EasyTweaker and LEProp are very straightforward, with a button to import the custom png file and replace the LotEditor-generated icon. Using the reader you will need to import the custom icon file and either Set the TGI values of your custom icon to the TGI values of the LotEditor-generated one, and remove the LotEditor-generated one, or Give the custom icon a new/unique IID and change the "Item Icon" exemplar to point to the new IID. You should also remove the old icon png file from your lot file. That's all that's needed. You should now see your custom icon in the game menu. One thing to be careful of with custom icons. If you modify your custom lot using the Lot Editor, it will overwrite the custom png file (if you've used the same IID). This means you will have to reload the custom icon if you use the Lot Editor on the lot. That's pretty much it. If you have any questions, PM deadwoods or email at st_deadwoods@optusnet.com.au.

Level: Advanced Please PM STomnibus if you have any questions about this article. This is a technical guide/tutorial on creating custom light props that actually light up in the game (at night). The tutorial assumes the following knowledge: Familiarity with iLive's Reader utility Understanding of the key SC filetypes, such as FSH and S3D files A strong understanding of TGI's and IID's There are two parts to this document, a technical overview of the components involved in in game and custom light props, followed by a mini tutorial on creating custom lights. Some of this stuff is fairly complex, and there are some areas where it's easy to make mistakes, so I'd advise doing this stuff carefully and take a few backups. I had many frustrating nights trying to get it right. Thanks to Karybdis, Pegasus and the BSC team for help with this. Background When looking at the props we wanted to add to the Amsterdam Centraal Station lot, I found some funky blue lightpoles in front of the real station and thought they'd be great for custom lights in the game. I know smoncrie had played around with this a bit and written a brief tutorial. Pegasus has also been playing with custom light models. In the end I was able to create the lights I wanted, but it was a long process. Lights and LightCones, A Technical Overview Before jumping headfirst into creating custom lights, we need to look at the technical aspects of the Maxis lights and lightcones. If you skip this section and go to the tutorial, you'll get yourself into strife, guaranteed. Files and Relationships The following points describe the files used by lghts and their relationships: To build a custom light you're concerned with two models, the lightpole which you would build in the BAT, and the light it "produces" (such as lightcone). You can refer to the supplied ones or copy the supplied ones and tweak to your liking. Each model (e.g. lightpole and lightcone) consists of two filetypes; the FSH filetype (Type = 0x7ab50e44) and S3D filetype (Type = 0x5ad0e817). These are normally in a 1:1 relationship, one FSH file per S3D, but some S3D files share a FSH file (such as the standard MAXIS lightcones). Each model will have either one (1) FSH/S3D file pair or twenty (20) FSH/S3D file pairs. The BAT will produce twenty (for each of zoom 1-5 and each direction combination). Some MAXIS models only have one pair of FSH/S3D files. This is usually where the model looks exactly the same in each direction and zoom level (such as the lightcones which are basically a spherical shape and look the same in each direction). Prop exemplars refer to the S3D file (either the single one if there is only one or the ****0000 IID one if there are twenty of them). This is done through the Resource Key Type 4 exemplar property. If this points to an invalid model, you will normally get the brown box. Each S3D file refers to a FSH file (or "texture") through its Material ID (under the Mats tab in the reader). If this points to an invalid texture, you will get a box in Red/Blue/Green. GID's and IID's For the lights to work in both day and night, all models (both the lightpole and lightcone) must use a GID of BADB57F1 (0xbadb57f1). If you don't for custom lights, you may see what you're expecting during the day but at night you'll either get the brown box or an unexpected model. Because you must use a GID of BADB57F1, and only the first four characters of the IID are used as a unique reference (the other four are used for zoom and rotation) you have to be really careful when allocating IID's. There seem to be great chunks not used by MAXIS (3***, 5***, 7***, b***, d*** and f*** based on a quick check of the simcity_*.dat files). I've been using 4DE*. The Standard MAXIS Lightcones MAXIS provide four lightcone models: 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,2cb70000 - a large cone approx. 13m high, radius at base of 4.5m 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,2cb80000 - a medium cone approx. 10m high, radius at base of 3.5m 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,09c6e584 - a smaller/flatter cone approx. 6m high, radius at base of 2.5m 0x5ad0e817,0xbadb57f1,29da0000 - a small globe of light as used with the $ lights These are shown below against a 10m x 10m grid. These S3D files refer to one of two textures (FSH files): 0x7ab50e44,0x1abe787d,09c6e584 - lightcone; used by 2cb70000, 2cb80000 and 09c6e584 0x7ab50e44,0x1abe787d,ea89e9ee - globe of light, used by 29da0000 Building Custom Lights There are three stages to creating custom lights; create your own lightcone models (optional, you can use the supplied ones), create your own lighpole models, and putting them together. Creating your own LightCone Models Theoretically it's possible to create your own complete lightcone model (i.e. create the S3D + FSH files) but it would be a lot of work. The simplest way is to use the existing MAXIS lightcone models and tweak the FSH file. You will need custom light models if you want different light colours (as Peg has done with his Peglites). Also if you are going to use multiple lightcones on a single light that will intersect, you might want to reduce the brightness of the light (otherwise you'll burn your eyes out looking at the intersection of the lightcones). You will need to copy both the MAXIS S3D and FSH files into your own .dat file (reader). You need the S3D file as it refers to the FSH file. You use the normal FiSHman and image editing tools to change the FSH file and upload it. You will need to ensure you set the GID of your custom files to BADB57F1, the IID's to something unique (within the BADB57F1 set) and that the Material ID points to your custom FSH file. Creating you own Lightpole Models This is just standard BAT work. Two things to remember: You should make your poles equivalent to the light model sizes (i.e. approx. 11-12m tall, approx. 8-9m tall or 6-7m tall). If you are going to have multiple lightcones hanging off a single pole, you will need to know the X,Y co-ordinates of the light sources (bulbs) in your model. Once you have exported the model from the BAT and created the model as a Prop in the Plugin Manager, you will need to go through every S3D file and FSH file in your .desc file and change the GID to BADB57F1 and the IID to a unique value (same unique value for all files). You will also need to go through the S3D files and set the Material ID to be the unique ID you have set for these files. This is a critical step and it must be done correctly. Putting it all Together The key to putting it all together is the prop exemplar file. There are two properties you must have: Nighttime State Change - 0x01 means "change to state 1" Resource Key Type 4 - this replaces the Resource Key Type 0/1 that is the default for single state/single model props. Resource Key Type 4xm is used to tie changing props to game activity (such as traffic lights). I've removed it and the props seem to function ok. The resource key type 4 contains a variable number of sets of values. Each set contains eight Uint32 values. Each set of values represents one model (such as lightpole or lightcone) and state (daytime = 0, nighttime = 1) combination. For example a light with three lightcones would have five sets of values (i.e. fourty all up): SET1 - reps 1 - 8 - nighttime model for lightpole SET2 - reps 9 - 16 - nighttime model for lightcone #1 SET3 - reps 17 - 24 - nighttime model for lightcone #2 SET4 - reps 25 - 32 - nighttime model for lightcone #3 SET5 - reps 33 - 40 - daytime model for lightpole An example of this is shown below: Each set of eight values contains: the first REP is day (0) or night (1), although I think the values can be different things, because there is the Nighttime State Change property that say's "at night time use state A" (where A is normally "1" corresponding to the value of the first rep). the second, third and fourth reps are the X,Z,Y represent the offset from the centre of the prop. the fifth rep will be either: 0x27812820 if there is a single S3D file for the prop/lightcone etc. which corresponds to Resource Key Type 0, or 0x27812821 if there are 20 S3D files (for combinations of N/S/E/W at zoom 1 - 5) which corresponds to Resource Key Type 1. [*]the sixth, seventh and eigth reps are the T,G and I values for the prop/lightcone. To work out the X,Z and Y values, you need to convert from Hex to Decimal and then divide the number by 16^4 (i.e. 65536). For example, the $StreetlightDiagonalAVE_2CC1 uses two lighcones (5ad0e817,badb57f1,2cb70000) with the following dimensions: From what I've seen the Z value refers to the height of the cone base above the ground. So my example above using the custom lightcone of 4DE00000 has the following X,Z,Y values for the lightcones (rep #2, #3 and #4): #2 .63m, -1.5m, 1.12m #3 .63m, -1.5m, -1.12m #4 -1.3m, -1.5m, 0m Here are three lights I created for the Amsterdam Centraal Station lot (day and night views). There are actually three light cones per light pole. That's pretty much it. If you have any questions, PM deadwoods or email at st_deadwoods@optusnet.com.au. If you have any further questions about this article, please PM STomnibus.

The nail's been hit on the head above; SC4 died 'cos it wasn't making enough money for EA. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't worked for a software company. If a product's not making it's revenue budget, the development team gets cut and the product slowly dies on the shelf. It happens all the time. Would there have been an EP3? Highly unlikely; only the folks who had the original would shell out for it and it would unlikely pull a larger consumer base. Given that The Sims was going gang-busters at the time the revenue stream from SC4 and thus the driver for continued development was very limited. I doubt (almost) anyone knows what conversations were had in the halls and conference rooms at EA, but it's not hard to figure it out (EA is a profit-making business after all). I think we've all played vanilla SC4, then SC4+RH and moved on to the current SC4RH+NAM+CAM+Gig's of custom content. I recall playing SC4 (not having played the predecessors) and loving it. Then RushHour came out and it got even better. After a spell away from the game I came back last year to find the leaps forward the community had made. I'm loving playing the game now; it's brilliant. So, "to each his own". It's like the old custom content and dependencies argument, if you don't like it don't download it, but don't slag off at those who do.

It's a while since I've been active here and can't recall what the last version of the STEX I used was. So the following comment may not relate to this latest upgrade.... I've noticed that we used to have two pictures for an upload, and the left (or first) one became the thumbnail view which you clicked on to see the download details. The thunbnail used to be the top (182 px from memory) of the left image. The new thumbnails seem to just take the middle 250x250 chunk of the left picture. In my case I used to put the lot picture on the top left, but often show custom queries in the lower left portion... The option to select either the middle or top, and which of the images would be nice. I can't see myself going through and updating 99 files.

BAT Lot Development 101 ~ A Compendium of Information ~ This thread summarises the steps involved in building a BAT Lot, everything from designing and building a lot in the BAT (gmax) to publishing the lot on the Simtropolis Exchange (STEX). It provides a lot of useful information and links to many threads in the Simtropolis Forums. This thread began life as a simple checklist of steps and considerations ( Building quality (BAT) Lots - Some Guidelines ), but grew into a much larger discussion thread. It was moved into the BSC Forum as a means to help the generation of quality BAT Lots. The original thread ended up containing a lot of argument over a specific aspect of lot building, which detracted from the thread. As I was often updating it, the original thread structure made it too hard to edit. This current thread was built from the key information in that old thread, but with a different structure. I want to stress that the information here is not meant to be a set of rules on what you must do. Rather it's a collection of hints, tips, considerations and summaries to help the lot development process. Thread Structure (Index) This document contains sections based on the steps in getting a lot from the BAT to the STEX. These sections summarise the actions/activities/considerations etc. for each step. There are also some Appendices at the end that provide more detailed information. The structure of the document is: Introduction Index General Information Where to start? How to go about it? Thanks, Comments and Additions BAT -> STEX Steps 1. Preparation . Things to consider/gather before you start development. a. Planning . b. Research . c. Standards to be used . 2. BAT Development . Developing the building and props in gmax/BAT. a. Model building . b. Apply lighting to building . c. Apply textures to building . d. Export building . e. Model/light/texture/export props . 3. BAT Configuration . Configuring exemplars in the Plugin Manager. a. Considerations for ploppables . b. Considerations for growables . c. Considerations for props . 4. Lot Development . Building the Lot in the Lot Editor. a. Creating custom textures . b. Use of the Lot Editor . 5. BAT/Lot Advanced Configuration and Customisation . Adding the bells and whistles. a. Add custom attributes . b. Menu placement . c. Custom queries . d. Transit/Network enabling . e. Adding custom streetlights . 6. Testing the Lot . Testing the lot before shipping. a. Testing a ploppable lot . b. Testing a growable lot . 7. Packaging and Shipping the Lot . Putting it all together to publish. a. Package PROPS . b. Package TEXTURES . c. Create a README . d. Create jpg(s) of lot . e. Package lot files . f. Test packaging . g. Upload to STEX . Appendices - more technical/reference information A. General information and Planning B. BAT/gmax hints, tips and advanced information C. Plugin Manager use and Building characteristics D. Lot Editor use and Lot development. E. Modding F. Testing, Packaging and Publishing General Information There is a wealth of information splattered across the Simtropolis Omnibus and Forums. The best forums to search for information are under the Custom Content Forums: BAT - Bat Squad Certification Tea Room containing a lot of good technical discussion on all aspects of BAT Lot development, such as standards. BAT - Open Discussion where the BATters showcase their work. Great for ideas. BAT - Workshop where the BAT/gmax experts hang out. If you have a question on how to do something in gmax/BAT this is the place to go. Modding - Open Discussion is a great forum if you want to find out how to modify a building/lot to do something. There's a fair chance it's been done before. Modding - Research & Development where the more out there modding is discussed. It also contains many posts containing tables/lists of information you can use for modding. Lot Making, Map Making & Exchange for all matters relating to lot development. It covers everything from how to's to here's what I've done. The best place to study end-to-end BAT building is philippbo's comprehensive Essential BAT Tutorial in the Omnibus. It walks through creating a building in the BAT, configuring it in the plugin manager, creating a lot for it and testing it in the game. It's a great place to start understanding the process before diving into the nuts'n'bolts of gmax or modding. There are some other end-to-end tutorials, such as The SC4 B.A.T. Preview and Thoughts on the B.A.T. . Vlakhaas, the BAT Squad Certification Co-ordinator, has posted some general hints/considerations on the BSC Project ... LE and Props thread. ~ back to index | top of section | next section ~ Where to start? How to go about it? OK, so you want to create a great BAT Lot, but you don't know where to start... This entire thread is designed to be a bit of a follow the dots document (see the structure of the Index ). The basic BAT lot development steps are: Build your building model in gmax Export it to SC-graphic format using the BAT gamepack Set the building attributes (name, cost, jobs etc.) in the Plugin Manager Build a lot featuring the building in the Lot Editor Perhaps add some custom features to the lot (transit enable, custom query) using the custom development tools available on ST Test, package and publish the lot to the SimTropolis Exchange (STEX). This is not the complete set of steps, just the basic (neccessary) ones. See the rest of this document for more details. There are two basic approaches to applying a BAT model to a lot; Create the main building model in gmax/BAT. In the plugin manager define the building as the appropriate building type and accept/change the settings for that type of building. In the lot editor pick an equivalent lot and replace the building with your building. This is the standard way of building a BAT lot. Create the main building model in gmax/BAT. In the plugin manager define the building as a prop and accept/change the prop settings. In the Lot Editor use either one of the hidden building lots (such as the parks and plaza's) or RalphaelNinja's Blank RCI Lot set as a base and add the building as a prop. To set the building parameters for the lot (e.g. cost, name) using one of the mod tools, such as iLive's reader. This is the method I usually use. Either approach should work equally well. However the first method will look more realistic when bulldozing, by default you will get all the right settings from the plugin manager (e.g. lighting on, preview of building), and generally you can get a functioning lot without using any non-Maxis tools. This is probably the safest option for first-time BATters. With the second option you have to ensure you set the building/lot parameters using a mod tool, but I've found it to be more flexible for creating multiple lots with the same/similar parameters as they're all carried/contained in the lot definition (.sc4lot file) rahter than in the building description file (.sc4desc). Also, there is an intermittent problem with some lots when a building is replaced, but the original building exemplar file stays in the lot file, so in the game you see the original building not your new one. ~ back to index | top of section | next section ~ Thanks, Comments and Additions Thanks to everyone who's commented on this thread. I hope it helps SimTropoleans become more proficient at all aspects of BAT Lotting, and helps produce more quality lots. I'd especially like to thank: - Cerulean for contributing some stuff, - Vlakhaas and the BSC folks for the work they're doing, - Philippbo, Caliban and others for the BAT/gmax assistance and tutorials, - All the MOD squad folks for the info they've published on modding, - Daeley for his excellent custom query tutorial, and - all other ST contributors that have added good technical info to the ST forums This is a work-in-progress, so please post any comments or PM me with suggestions. If you have material that is relevant, or you've found some great posts, send them to me and I'll review them and probably add them. I'll be sporadically updating the thread as I come across other useful info. Deadwoods - May 04. Thank you. ~ back to index | top of section | next section ~

I'm surprised this thread has re-appeared. It disappeared during one of the ST upgrades over the years. I'll have to go through it in detail at some stage, I understand the links have been lost over the various ST iterations. I expect some of the content would be out date after six years. I know BarbyW updated the content for her "Guide to the creation of custom content for sharing with the community" thread at SC4D. The thread wasn't really designed for specific "how do I do this", "this isn't working" or "where do I find this" type queries. There are heaps of other threads here and at SC4D covering these types of queries.

Yes. That's what I've done with the Bike Paths set on SC4D (and an upcoming BSC Parks plaza set).